Hi, my name is Alla Zhdan, and I am a PMO Community Manager at SoftServe. In simple terms, my job is to take care of project managers. Together with the team, we create development opportunities, help project managers enjoy all the community benefits, and support them in their efforts to realize their potential as authors, speakers, trainers, and in other roles that may be of interest to a member of the Community of Practice.

The Community of Practice is primarily aimed at professional development, but these are times when people want to unite around a good charitable cause. In fact, everyone has a need to contribute to the victory and accelerate it by doing some good deeds together. In this article, you will learn about three ways to unite your community around a good cause and some interesting charity events you can implement at work.

Merch for a donation to the Come Back Alive charity fund

The PMO (Project Management Office) where I work had its own branded merchandise—various items with the logo. We ordered them back in 2018 and gifted them to the community as needed. In April 2022, we decided that this merch should not be gathering dust in the warehouse and planned a total sale. With a certain discount, of course (but not 90%), because we were raising money for the Come Back Alive fund.

First, we made an inventory of everything we had, and it turned out that we had umbrellas, mugs, thermos bottles, T-shirts, and bottles. In particular, there were just a couple of those left over from the PM Good News Conf — we gave them away for winning quizzes. T-shirts were particularly important in this selection because we used to give them to all new project managers (this tradition ended with the start of quarantine). Therefore, a branded T-shirt, a major PMO exclusive, was the most coveted item.

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In total, we had 181 items in stock, so we made a small catalog. After the sale announcement, everyone could get a link to the product page and choose something. We confirmed orders, removed previously sold products, and raised funds for the upcoming donation. We announced the catalog on April 11, and by April 19, every item had been sold out. Then came the delivery phase: things were shipped by regular mail within Ukraine or hand-delivered in Lviv. Yes, even though we had project managers in seven countries, we decided to limit ourselves to Ukraine since we were unsure that everything would arrive safely and promptly.

The days when we had the chance to meet with the community and hand over merch were very rewarding. We had coworkers who had never been to the HQ office and community members who had recently relocated from Kharkiv or Kyiv. They took their T-shirts, umbrellas, or mugs and often shared that they had left in a hurry and didn't even have the opportunity to take any personal belongings with them. Those were heartfelt interactions with hugs, and umbrellas were tested out in the meeting room (no water was needed, just opening and closing to check if all the mechanics worked).

The following week, my colleague and I sent 55 packages across Ukraine. It took us 5 hours of packing and shipping because we decided not to delegate this task to postal employees. After all, we wanted to ensure that everything arrived to the recipients in the best possible condition. A few of the first customers received hand-signed cards, and we ensured that nothing was lost and that everything fit nicely in the boxes. Now we know that one rectangular 120 cm tube can easily fit three umbrellas and a cup!

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My colleague Iryna Mladonova and I were packing the items together

In total, we raised 50,000 UAH in donations, treated the community with merchandise, and created a joint charity project. It is so important to be engaged in good deeds: not everyone has the chance to volunteer actively, and some people are happy to donate or support a charitable initiative.

Therefore, in my opinion, the task of a community manager is to create such opportunities and intriguing initiatives that will be accessible, easy, and enjoyable to join.

How to raise 74 000 UAH from a book sale

After we sold out of all the merch in April, we decided to organize a collection and charity sale of paper books. Of course, the books had to be dedicated to project management, leadership, teamwork, various methodologies, and business. SoftServe project managers, employees from different departments, and even friends from other companies brought books to the office or sent them by mail.

So, in a few weeks, we collected 40 books. We created a catalog and added five secret lots from PMO Director Denys Prylutskyi (we planned to show them a week after sales started). We used to raise funds and then transfer them to our corporate charity fund Open Eyes but we decided that now everyone who wanted to get a book would make a donation personally and send a receipt as a confirmation. We opened this sale to the public and allowed the external community to join. And it started very cheerfully!

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We expected that at this stage people would simply buy lots, but even though we did not announce additional fundraising, the community continued to send us books. The book bank increased from 40 to 117 items in two weeks. One delivery director brought 30 books, which enriched our catalog! We eventually stopped accepting them because it was just too many.

Everyone wanted to do something good. One project manager from Kharkiv, currently living in Lviv, told us that she really wanted to send books but couldn't because her library was left at home. So she went out, got some new ones, and sent them to us. It was one of the most touching moments of these months after the full-scale invasion. Such important moments.

In total, in 2022, we held two charity fundraisers and book sales. The total amount of donations for 184 books amounted to 74,000 UAH.

Community events

At SoftServe, we are used to sharing our expertise both internally and externally. There are different ways to do this: create a platform in the company where community members can ask each other questions or ask for advice in different situations, help to become a coach, mentor, and, of course, a speaker at external events.

In the summer, SoftServe hosted a series of events called Underground, which my colleague Natalia Shevelova described in this article. We invited experts from many fields to speak at these events. In particular, seven project managers shared their experience leveraging expertise from our crowdsourcing platform Open Tech in charitable projects.

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What makes the series of events so compelling in terms of charitable giving and community involvement? I'll address three key points:

Being under a common umbrella. A series of events united by a single goal, project, or topic appears to be holistic. What case can bring experts from your organization together? Perhaps it's business innovation, training under challenging conditions, or team building in times of war. We are confident you have the experience that will be useful to the external community.
The internal community shares its experience with the external community. What's great about this is that it forces you to step outside of your comfort zone because there are things that your colleagues may not ask, but friends or strangers from other companies would.
Collecting donations. There are several options here. The first is to charge for the event at the registration stage, the second is to add QR codes and the possibility to donate at the event, and the third is to provide access to recordings of speakers' talks for a donation. For example, our friends from Product Management Office used the first option when they organized a charity conference. They engaged external and internal speakers and donated more than 200,000 UAH.

In my experience, charitable initiatives at work are a great way to not only help the country or a local initiative but also to unite the team, strengthen relationships with coworkers, and, of course, be inspired. After all, seeing that you can help someone and do some good is immensely motivating in both life and work. I hope this article inspires you to do good deeds as well 😊